Several days earlier, at our committee meeting, the staff had been chastised for not being on top of this, so it was hurriedly done and sent out the next day. They faxed me a copy of the letter the morning they had written it. I was walking out the door for a day of meetings when it arrived, so I gave it a cursory glance instead of my usual thorough going-over. I was just happy it was finally being sent out. No. 1 lesson learned: Never, ever do things in a hurry, no matter what. You will always regret it. Holding it back one more day wouldn’t have hurt anything.

Jan. 17. After hours of lying in bed obsessing about the letter, I get up in the middle of the night and write the staff what my old Southern friend would call a “come-to-Jesus” e-mail. It is not pretty. I take partial blame but find there’s plenty of blame to spread around, and spread it I do. The patron letter is the final straw in several challenges I’ve had with the staff, and it all comes tumbling out.

As any chair can tell you, it’s hard not to overstep your bounds when you’re a volunteer, and I was trying—probably too hard—to be nice, because there had been so much staff turnover and a big learning curve. There were some fund-raising basics I assumed the newer staff members knew, which they did not. I also try not to be a control freak and to give people enough latitude to do their job, but when I’ve had enough, I have really had enough.

The end result is positive—much better understanding and communication between the staff and me. Roger Birkel, Selby Gardens CEO, is instrumental in negotiating a peace agreement, after which things improve greatly. My one demand is that we redo the letter correctly—I will write it myself—and mail it again, which we do.

Jan. 30. The past-chair luncheon—great turnout and great opportunity to hear the oral history of the ball. I always enjoy hearing about the days when committees got together and actually hand-made all the decorations and centerpieces. Now that an entire industry has grown up around event planning in Sarasota, it’s hard to imagine that women used to do it all themselves. The whole set-up of the evening was a little different then, too. You went to your table hostess’s home for cocktails and all arrived at the ball together. Think what we could save on our event budget if we could cut out cocktail costs!

Feb. 16. Invitations are mailed. Seeing the completed invitation was a little heart stopping, as it was never given to me or anyone else on the committee or at the gardens for a final proofing. It ends up looking great, but I later find out that one of the past chairs, Laura Peters, was left off the past-chair listing, for which I feel terrible. (Does naming her in this article make up for it? I hope so!)

In the old days, invitation addressing was loads of fun and a great learning experience. Everyone gathered at someone’s home. The people with the best handwriting did the actual addressing and the others sealed and stamped, while gossip and fact were passed back and forth about many of the names on the envelopes. If you were new to the community, you learned more in that one day than in a normal year’s entire experience!

Now it’s all so mechanical, with labels and such, but it still can be fun if you put your mind to it. At least doing it in Selby’s Activity Center affords us the opportunity of enjoying the radiant bay view all day.

March 24. The ball is just nine days away. We do a dry run of putting the centerpieces together. The original concept was to have a huge martini glass overflowing with orchids. It doesn’t work at all. Someone suggests we rim the glass with orchid corsages. That idea is quickly discarded as we realize we won’t be able to obtain sufficient numbers of the appropriate orchid for corsages. Plan C? Call Beneva Flowers for a quick meeting. They come through with an exceptional, visually stunning idea.

March 26. The Sunday morning before the Saturday-night ball. My husband, Jan, receives a call from his brother. Their mother, who has been ill for some time, has gotten worse. I silently hope she can hang on for another week, since she’s in Michigan and we’re here. Sadly, she passes away by 3 p.m. that day, and we make plans to head up North. It’s not the most opportune time for me to leave, but I have no choice.